India in Australia 2024-25

[PKBasu]

Among those picked to play the Duleep Trophy this year, Mohit Avasthi and Yash Dayal are good pacers who show batting ability (batting averages in the 17-19 range). But of course Manishankar Murasinghe would be the ideal pick -- among those left out of the Duleep squads. He and Avasthi are both over 31 years old.
Nitish Kumar Reddy (only 21 years old) has an underwhelming batting record in first class cricket (batting average 20.96) but has 52 wickets in 17 matches at 22.96 apiece. His white ball batting record is substantially more impressive. Probably one to be nurtured for the future as an allrounder.

[prasen9]

My rule of thumb is -10 for Indian domestic batting numbers. So, any realistic allrounder should have a batting average and bowling average over and below 30.

That said, we will have to take whoever we have if someone does not fit that bill. I don't pay that much attention to bowlers who average near 17-18 in Indian domestics. In SENA countries, that will amount to 7-8 or maybe 10-11, which is better than the 6s that we have with our pacers but not much better to sacrifice bowling effectiveness.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

At present there is no pace bowling allrounder exists in domestic who can feature in Playing XI for Australia tour. Options which are available are yet to deliver consistently for India A and also in domestic. So, team will go as usual 4 genuine pacers and 1 spinner allrounder.
Nitish Reddy, Raj Bawa, Arshin Kulkarni, Samit Dravid can be groomed for future.

[PKBasu]

My rule of thumb is -10 for Indian domestic batting numbers. So, any realistic allrounder should have a batting average and bowling average over and below 30.

That said, we will have to take whoever we have if someone does not fit that bill. I don't pay that much attention to bowlers who average near 17-18 in Indian domestics. In SENA countries, that will amount to 7-8 or maybe 10-11, which is better than the 6s that we have with our pacers but not much better to sacrifice bowling effectiveness.

By that rule of thumb, Shardul Thakur's test batting average should be 8.21 -- but it actually is 19.47 (higher than his overall first class batting average, which was actually lower, 16+, when he first started playing tests).

I think we should consider any bowler who has shown batting ability in the domestic circuit (averaging above 16 with bat being a good benchmark). But Harshit Rana averages 49 with the bat, and 26-ish with the ball in first class cricket (apart from being a genuine quick bowler), so he is our obvious test allrounder candidate, who needs to be nurtured. (Shardul averages 28+ with the ball in first class cricket).

[prasen9]

Obviously that is why it is a rule of thumb. And rules of thumb will have exceptions.

Rana is a good talent. I would not mind him getting the backup allrounder slot.

[Kumar]

For bowlers it is probably3 to 5 rather than -10. They don’t get as much opportunity to bat domestically

All rounder probably closer to 5.

[prasen9]

Sorry, you guys are probably right. For batters, from whom I derived the rule and did not check for bowlers, it is about -10. But, 10/50 is about 20%. So, when someone averages 20, they will perhaps have a -4 or -5. And, when someone who averages 10 will have a -2. So, a % measure is perhaps better. Apologies to PKB.

Obviously, bowlers who average 10 in domestics are not going to average 0 in tests and they are better than those who average 5, etc. So, a 20-25% reduction is what I will try to think of now.

[Kumar]

We have to play this year Duleep trophy in hard bouncy grounds and see who does well under those conditions.

https://indianexpress.com/article/sport ... 4400/lite/


Looks like they are listening to us

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Iyer, Padikkal, two Australia tour probable looked clueless in perth like Anantapur track against uncapped pacers. Great track to prepare for away series

[SaniaFan]

Musheer Khan scored an unbeaten hundred on a tough pitch for IND B.

[PKBasu]

Musheer Khan and Axar Patel shone in the two matches with the bat. (To a limited extent, Yashaswi Jaiswal's 30 and Abhishek Porel's 32* were reasonable contributions as well). I think it was ridiculous to pitchfork Sai Sudarshan into opening in one of the matches. He was batting with great success for Surrey in the lower middle order last week!

Harshit Rana (2/13 in 7 over, 5 of them maidens) also shone with the ball, along with his team-mate Axar. Vijayshankar Vyshak took 3 wickets for 19 in 12 overs of sustained medium-pace.

[prasen9]

Rohit is going to miss the first test in Perth. Who is our backup opener? Rahul and Gill have been failures at the opening spot. But, do we still push one of them up the order and play Sarfaraz? Anyway, who is the team looking to if say an opener is injured? Easwaran? Or has his time gone?

The rumor mill seems to be suggesting it is going to be one of the three: Prithvi, Gaekwad, Easwaran. Of these three, I would prefer Easwaran because he perhaps has the best technique and temperament. I liked Prithvi too but he has not been in form. Gaekwad is more of a white ball player with a poor 42 average in Indian FC (where 50 is the marker of class). For the record, last time I checked Easwaran averaged 49 and Prithvi 46. They are 29, 27, and 24 respectively age-wise.

Is there any young opener coming up who is smashing the domestics?

[ericcw]

Gill would be a good choice. He has experience of playing in Australia. He is a solid backfoot player.

[prasen9]

Yes, but, we will see. Since his first successful series in Australia, his technical deficiencies have been well known and exploited. Let's see if he can continue his success there. I hope he can. We really need almost everybody firing because the Aussies are always very good at home.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Squad :

Rohit Sharma (C), Jasprit Bumrah (VC), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (WK), Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel (WK), R Ashwin, R Jadeja, Mohd. Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar.

Reserves: Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed

Out due to Injury : Kuldeep Yadav, Mohd. Shami